Word: arellanos
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...With both supply and demand for illegal workers still going strong, this Administration will have a difficult time carrying out any wide-scale crackdown, even if the country were prepared to stomach many more family separations like Arellano's (Pew estimates that 3.1 million U.S. citizen children live in a household in which either the head of the family or their spouse is here illegally...
...news buoyed opponents of illegal immigration, who have long had Arellano in their sights. There had been rumors of citizens' arrests or other Minutemen-style interventions once word spread that Arellano was planning to leave her sanctuary, where the feds typically will not try to arrest illegal immigrants. But the fact that the normally supine federal government did the job for them made the news even sweeter. "Elvira felt entitled to special treatment," says Bob Dane, press secretary of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors tougher border security and enforcement. "She had a mistaken impression that...
...Arellano was not just another person facing deportation, and her personal setback may not turn out to be the harbinger of victory that activists like Dane hope it to be. She was the pro-immigrant caucus's poster alien, their best chance to highlight the cruelty of the current status quo. Her deportation will effectively separate her from her American-born son, Saul, 8, at least temporarily. While his mother was living at the church, it was Saul who represented her case at rallies and events around the country, and he is now in the care of the Chicago church...
...that Arellano herself is the ideal figure to rally around. Yes, her son was born here and therefore is an U.S. citizen. But Arellano had already been deported once, years before she ever had a child (she snuck back in after her first deportation a decade ago). Arellano's ambitions to work illegally in the U.S. predate her status as a fugitive mother who only wants to be with her citizen son. Her case and her cause have also at times been handled inartfully - the aggressive use of her young son as a mascot for the movement at times bordered...
...Arellano will continue to work for immigration rights from the southern side of the border, and to fight for a private bill in the U.S. Congress that would give her a special permission to return to the States. In the meantime, she and her allies are hoping she'll become a symbol for all those facing deportation. "The blood of the martyrs," says Rev. Salvatierra, quoting old scripture somewhat extravagantly, "is the seed of the church...